Category: Daily Writing
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Waiting In the Tall Grass
“It’s amazing how we might return, time and time again, to a place we only might get scraps from.”
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so put on your best
“she was self-possessed, striking (jet black hair, the perfect long bangs), and clearly more interesting than the rest of us. I had to make her my friend.”
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Fortune July
on the Fourth of July, familial love, & joy, despite awareness of broader societal issues.
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why’s it always a weather metaphor? 🎧
on nuanced exploration of hope and anticipation amidst a heavy, silent sky.
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Via del Biscione 🎧
“They people-watch with their chins cupped in their hands, giggling madly at one another every so often when they stretch their necks far enough to catch each other’s stupid faces.”
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Shoes Stay On
A girl came up beside me and said, “I heard you were the person to speak to… about dancing?”
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Skin Therapy
“Not only is she empathizing, she’s already thinking of the sentence that will soothe me. It might be hilarious, or it might be the most grounding thing I need. It’s beautiful, how clearly I can count on that.”
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Buh-Bye
She makes real fruit cocktail. Slices the peaches and the pears and adds pitted cherries and her own homemade juice: fresh squeezed lime and honey, she said, “Something else, I can’t remember.”
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Sleep Demon 🎧
“I walk through the same moonlit hallway, go into the bathroom with the same flickering light, and look at myself in the mirror.”
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Han Solo
He was the baby of our family, and he wanted to be seen and heard. One boy vs. three girls. I remember one time in the mudroom of our grandparents’ home, I was sitting on the couch and he was being playful. He had this small white bear dressed as a clown with spotted dots…
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Would you excuse me? 🎧
I was about to log my period when it hit me: someday I’ll be an older woman, and my period will be long gone, and I’ll think, “I remember how much I hated that damn period app, and now I miss it.” I stood in my kitchen and marked my thought by saying out loud,…
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The Watermelon Dome 🎧
The outside smells like when we were talking. Musty grass. Spring giving into summer faster than most regions. The gardenia tree next door releasing its scent. Or maybe it’s the perfume I wore last year around this time. Warm and lingering on my neck, rose and blueberry and magnolia. In the watermelon dome, our skin…
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Beth’s Son
Don’t tell my clients, but I have favorites. Scott, age 70, with his Southern-wilted voice and firebrand progressive opinions (a welcome rarity in our book of business), is one of them. He calls me dear, and oh how I love it. I know—I’m supposed to bristle at terms of endearment from older men, but I…
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Ujjayi
dripping into triangle pose,with strong legs anda twisting core,my palm sliding downsore, soft shinsto reach the floor,and my eyes, which ought to be fixedon my opposite hand,are momentarily fixed on youand the way you like to watch.powder-pink carnationsin a cobalt-bluetranslucent pitcher.your unbuttoned,secondhand-ownedNaked & Famous shirt.the conversation you decide to startwhile I’m in the most difficult…
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Sierra’s Swarm
In the gulf near Beer Can Island (the worst, until Milton made it a reverie), we are surrounded by aquamarine water that mirrors the sky and is made brighter by the razor-sharp yellow of the sun. A black fog of lovebugs hover around the boat. We laugh and hold our drinks above the gentlest waves,…
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Rapunzel
You were gold-spun hair and tiny limbs and big, expressive hazel eyes, and dare I say, gold-spun skin?! You had pixie dust in your bloodstream, and it wasn’t from all the handmade princess dresses in the perfectly curated closet your mother kept for you. It was just you. You were only three in these memories…
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Ernest
I see Ernest slowly make his way around the hospital floor. He is (I’m guessing) on his first lap, and it’s shaky. I’m not sure if it’s because it’s not even five a.m. or because his condition is worsening. When you stay in a hospital, time becomes something strange. For me, a visitor, it’s defined…
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Archived
my hair is getting longerand my body keeps getting smallerI make boring appointmentsreceive compliments I want to return,but I don’t want to seem contrived.what I really want?is this parking lot to be empty,so I can dance to this song.I’ll settle for memory mining, though my co-author prefers meto stay silent. he’ll say:shh, get back in…
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Cenerentola
When I was very, very little, I have a memory of being very, very sick and being held by my mom, who was (by all definitions) the best mom in the entire world. She didn’t panic when you were hurt. She flew into calm, focused action. The kind of mom who attacked you with kisses…